Spanish soccer club scores goal with crypto partnership

A major soccer team in Spain is getting in on the cryptocurrency fun. Atlético de Madrid has partnered with Chiliz, a sports and entertainment blockchain company, to become the latest team to join blockchain-based fan engagement platform, Socios.com. Like other soccer teams before it, Atlético will be able to offer its fans tokens to support their favorite teams.

Chiliz announced the new partnership in a press release from on September 6, explaining, “Socios.com is a first-of-its-kind blockchain-based mobile app for sports and entertainment fans. As the Club’s Official Fan Token partner, Socios.com will help Atlético de Madrid stay closer to its global fanbase of millions of fans, through Atlético de Madrid Fan Tokens, digital assets that allow fans to engage in certain polls and rewards them for their participation.“

Atlético is following in the footsteps of other soccer clubs, such as Paris Saint-Germain, AS Roma, West Ham United and Juventus, who have already begun giving their fans the opportunity to purchase team tokens. The more interaction on the part of the fans, the greater the rewards. Socio.com will offer competitions for “once-in-a-lifetime experiences, games and leaderboard,” but Chiliz didn’t specify what the rewards might be.

According to the Atlético token’s creators, “The Atlético de Madrid Fan Token will be priced at €2 and will be available exclusively through Socios.com in Autumn 2019 for the 19/20 season. Fan Tokens can also be hunted for free through the app’s augmented-reality geo-location feature Token Hunt. Atlético de Madrid Fan Token holders will enjoy exclusive rights on the platform, including access to unique and exclusive experiences, promotions, draws and polls.”

The idea behind Socios isn’t to provide a digital currency solution that is tradable like most crypto. Instead, it’s a way to offer fan recognition and increase interest in the clubs. The founder and CEO of Chiliz, Alexandre Dreyfus, explained of the platform last year, “Our ambition is to build the world’s biggest global football community and marketplace for football fans alongside demonstrating that blockchain and cryptocurrency is the trusted technology of the mainstream.”

In addition to fan engagement, the platform also gives fans the potential to have a voice in how the sports clubs operate. They provide a mechanism that could allow voting and that could possibly help influence decisions within the targeted organization.